Hypoxic microclimate storage technology has been widely used for many years in the food industry. As a basis of preservation, an inert gas such as nitrogen or argon is used to displace air and moisture in packaging to extend the shelf lives of package contents. Gases such as noble gases like argon, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide tend to inhibit oxidation, hydrolysis, and other chemical reactions, which degrade the enclosed products. The conservation field has embraced this microclimate technology to the preserve art, historical artifacts, documents, and archeological. Exemplary artifacts contained in reduced oxygen or anoxic microclimate storage technology are the founding documents of the United States in the National Archives, Washington, D.C.; and mummies in the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in Cairo, Egypt.
Research on the use of micro climates with anoxic or hypoxic atmospheres started in the late 1980's at the Conservation Institute at the Getty Museum in California. The Getty research centered on the use of nitrogen, argon and other inert gases in the conservation storage and display of artifacts. The Getty Museum published a paper on the subject in entitled 1998 Oxygen-Free Museum Cases (1998, Edited by Shin Maekawa).
Microfading is an accelerated method for assessing the vulnerability of individual museum objects to light-fading, including those for which the identity of the colorant is unknown. During the microfading process a small area typically about 0.3-0.4 mm2 on the surface of an object is faded to an imperceptible degree using a powerful but cold source of visible light and spectral change is tracked in real time using visible reflectance spectroscopy. The microfading process provides exposures equivalent to 5-10 years display at normal museum light levels that are achieved within a 10 minute test period, and the results are routinely used to set exhibition and loan display conditions for a particular object based on its measured sensitivity to light. The microfading process is important for conservators, who are routinely asked to set “safe” display conditions for objects, and yet the fading rate of even a known colorant typically varies significantly with a range of factors associated with its physical and chemical environment (e.g., mordants), origin, processing, manufacture, application and past history. Many of these factors like mordants, prior fading or the identity of the dye itself are either unknowable in principle, or too difficult and expensive to routinely determine.
Despite the advances in preservation technologies, enclosures for displaying precious art work and artifacts remain quite costly and cumbersome. Thus, there exists a need for low cost and less cumbersome microclimate display enclosure that is easy to set up, maintain, and monitor.